During the BP oil disaster, the government would generally back up BP’s estimates of flow data, and only changed when they changed. Now we learn from Kate Sheppard that the White House actually leaned on their own scientists to lowball the amount of oil being released from the busted well.

On Wednesday, Dr. Jeffrey Gleason, currently an avian ecologist for the the Bureau of Ocean Energy, Management, Regulation and Enforcement, was questioned by agents from the the Obama Interior Department Office of Inspector General about aspects of his involvement with Dr. Charles Monnett’s 2006 peer-reviewed scientific paper that linked Polar bear mortality while swimming in the Arctic to climate change. Dr. Monnett has been under investigation since late 2010. Scrutiny of Dr. Gleason’s actions related to the Polar bear findings dates back to his first interview, held on January 26th. His questioning on Wednesday resulted in a request by the investigators for him to undergo a lie detector test regarding a misplaced routing slip:

Climate change skeptics have been after Dr. Monnett since Al Gore used information about his research in the movie, An Inconvenient Truth. Judging from the attacks launched since the last week of July on his 2005 paper and how environmentalists used that information to heighten awareness of rapid changes in the polar ice cap, the investigation of the scientist will continue to be misrepresented by the anti-science community, even as he goes back to work.

The one constant theme underlying all the elements that could have and/or did lead to the BP Gulf oil spill is the mendacious corporate servitude of the Republican party, their leaders and policies. The arrogance and recklessness of BP and its oily partners gestated wildly under the Bush/Cheney administration and little is changing significantly under Obama.

Yesterday PEER reported that President Obama asked a Bushie lawyer who spent years battling for mountain top destruction coal mining to run the Federal agency that regulates mountain top destruction mining. Change you can believe in? Yes – if you believe in hiring one of Steven Griles’ helpers and forever burying ancient streams and hollows under toxic coal mining waste in a mad rush to roast the planet.

Public Employees For Environmental Responsibility report that Lisa Jackson, President-elect Obama’s reported pick for EPA chief, used her power as head of New Jersey’s environmental agency (DEP) to undermine New Jersey’s environmental protection in service of industry. PEER describes how Jackson followed the classic Bushie tactic of hiring a former industry lobbyist to “ovesee” the very same regulations the industry had for years paid her to defeat.